Reflections 24th August

The nature of rock pools.

This is a follow-up post from two weeks ago. From Sand Bars, to the Tides that shape…

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Tides are such an interesting phenomenon. They're invisible out at sea, even though we can feel them and measure how they affect our progress. And we only really see their energy and character when they meet land.

There is something very evocative, almost primaeval, about how the tides meet the land. It's a relationship defined by the nature of the boundaries and their porosity. The picturesque cliffs of the South West resist the tide, until little by little, gradually, then suddenly, they find themselves collapsing into it. The boundaries on the East Coast are less resistant and change more rapidly. When the tides meet land in the south-west of England, carrying all the energy from the Atlantic, it is very different to the barely noticeable tides in the Mediterranean, or the subsurface tides of the Arctic.

The tide that shipwrecks also nurtures. In the same waters where vessels founder on shifting sandbanks, countless rock pools are teeming with life—temporary worlds that exist because of, not despite, the forces that can seem so destructive.

Whilst the Doom Bar's shifting sands are boundaries beyond our control, I find myself drawn to what these same tidal forces create: the rock pools that emerge in their wake. These temporary worlds reveal something profound about power and community that our organisational charts miss entirely. Barnacles, limpets, and mussels are the unglamorous foundation species that literally hold everything together. They're the infrastructure people in our communities: those who maintain relationships and institutional memory while filtering the constant flow of information that keeps systems alive. Not the prominent leaders, but the ones everyone depends on, like the people we clapped for during Covid, who are now largely ignored now that the crisis is past, even as we know there will be others.

Sea Anemones appear passive, almost decorative, yet they're apex predators who shape entire ecosystems through presence rather than movement. They create shelter while commanding respect. Then there are the hermit crabs, carrying their homes between worlds, upgrading when they outgrow their shells. Opportunistic but not destructive; bridge-builders and translators, comfortable moving between different spheres.

Rock pool power isn't zero-sum. The anemone's success doesn't diminish the crab's. It's distributed resilience rather than hierarchy, a living system where the most delicate inhabitants often signal the health of the whole. For me, this is what thriving communities look like. The rock pool whispers a truth we frequently forget: strength lies in balance, interdependence, and acceptance of change.

We are, all of us, living between the tides.

“The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes.”
Adam Nicolson, The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides

We are little different. Economies are our tides. They ebb and flow similarly.

Tides follow predictable patterns—twice daily, with spring and neap cycles every two weeks, seasonal variations that coastal communities have read for millennia. There's a mathematical precision to their rhythm: you can predict the exact height and timing years in advance.

Our economies have similar cycles, but we've lost the ability to read them clearly. Our politicians often remind me of Cnut’s courtiers, persuading our leaders that they can command the tides, even as they play with the markets in the knowledge that they cannot.

We've built our economic structures as if we could control these forces rather than dance with them. We panic during recessions instead of recognising them as necessary low tides that clear stagnant pools and expose new opportunities. We gorge during boom times rather than preparing for the inevitable ebb.

I wonder which of us is learning to read the signals, rather than just clinging on?

Rock pools teach us that the most resilient communities aren't those that try to maintain constant conditions, but those that have learned to thrive in the rhythm of change itself. They know that each tide brings disruption. New arrivals, fresh nutrients, and new possibilities, as well as the energy to clear away what is spent.

We can feel the industrial tide ebbing away, even as the digital tide is sweeping in. Those who thought technology had peaked are realising it is only just starting, and that the retreat of industrial economic tide is ruthlessly selective, following rules that feel both random and inevitable.

Position matters. Creatures caught in the deeper crevices, tucked behind protective rocks, nestle in the shadowed corners where water pools rather than drains. But geography alone doesn't guarantee survival. Barnacles seal themselves tight at precisely the right moment. Mussels clamp shut, creating their own microenvironment. They've learned to carry the ocean within them, at least temporarily. Some creatures read the early signals and follow the retreating water, migrating with their habitat rather than fighting to stay. We are not really different; our chances are determined by location, connection, and the ability to sense the signals.

The creatures that most interest me are those that have learned to live in both worlds. Anemones can survive exposure to air for hours, shrinking into themselves, waiting. Shore and hermit crabs scuttle between pools, comfortable with the transition. They've developed a form of resilience that enables them to function whether the tide is in or out. Then there are the hitchhikers, the copepods and ostracods, smaller organisms that attach themselves to the survivors, finding protection in partnership rather than trying to brave the exposure alone.

What strikes me is how little individual will matters here. It's not about wanting to survive the retreat, or even fighting harder. We cannot choose our rock pool. We’re in the ones we’re in. It's about adaptation, positioning, and reading the patterns correctly. If the creatures that thrive are those that have learned to see the ebb not as abandonment, but as a predictable phase requiring different skills, we would do well to learn those skills. What sort of creatures are we? What, or who, are we anchoring ourselves to, or if we’re not, are we preparing to, literally, go with the flow?

The thing is, we know the tide is turning, and the nature, if not the detail of what is coming. We can learn from the creatures that are the genes of the sea.

“There is also a response, not to familiar surroundings, but to cosmic forces. Every fortnight, on the moon's quarter, a batch of eggs is fertilised and taken into the brood chamber to begin its development. And at the same time the larvae that have been made ready during the previous fortnight are expelled into the sea. By this timing-this precise synchronising with the phases of the moon-the release of young always occurs on a neap tide, when neither the rise nor the fall of the water is of great extent, and even for so small a creature the chances of remaining within the rockweed zone are good.”
Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea

This is a challenging time to be a hitchhiker, when the organisations on whose backs we have become accustomed to travelling are fragile and afraid of the incoming tide.

Researchers are discovering that most AI pilots fail to add value - not because the technology lacks power, but because leadership lacks understanding, but it isn’t stopping the layoffs in anticipation of return. I suspect it is a form of mimetic FOMO, cushioned by a lack of genuine accountability. A latter-day version of “nobody got fired for buying IBM”. Which is no consolation if you’re the one with the P45 or pink slip.

Discussing this as a draft raised an interesting question. How does an organisation integrate AI - as a passive technology, or as a virtual employee? How much does the relationship shape the culture? One for another time….

Yet, at the same time, “shadow AI” is thriving. Despite enterprise programmes floundering, employees are turning to personal AI tools like ChatGPT in unofficial, “shadow” deployments: as many as 90% use personal AI, while only 40% of companies have official subscriptions.

It offers an intriguing possibility that individuals are learning to harness the power of AI faster than the organisations they work for. In turn, it poses a question: what if individuals can harness the technology to learn and create faster than their organisations can harness it? Does it raise the possibility that people will go where they can use what they are learning?

If we're going to be hitchhikers, we need to choose our rides more carefully.

“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I think we face a paradox: if we let AI control our doing, it will shape our being, so we must learn to harness it such that our being shapes its doing.

I am finding that hard work. Partly because it means getting to grips with tech that is foreign to me, learning new skills and working differently, which, after over seventy years on the planet, means letting a lot of familiar, comfortable assumptions go. Partly because the tech is really quite seductively designed, which makes it so easy to default to where it wants to take us. AI may not have a personality, but it does have a relentless logic. It reminds me of my calculus teacher.

If the incoming tide is changing the nature of the rock pool I have been happily inhabiting, and I want to maintain my integrity, then even at this point in my life, I have to adapt.

So, I think, do we all - or at least, make a conscious choice not to.

We have little choice, because the tide is changing our rock pool.

My friend Sue Heatherigton made an interesting observation in her post on Friday that resonated with me:

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Not all pathways are bad. 

And neither are they all good. 

Yet our autopilot works well for a reason. 

It’s the way we have learned how to navigate safely in a complex world. Without having to make a fresh decision every time we encounter the familiar. 

Until something changes and these responses no longer serve us well. 

But here’s the thing. We are so comfortable in the familiar that it takes a lot of energy to question these pathways. 

And much of the world around us is predicated on keeping us asleep. 

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Every species in the rock pool makes the same fundamental choice: compete for diminishing resources in a dying pool, or learn to thrive in the rhythm of change itself. We're facing that choice now. Not just as individuals, but as communities.

What kind of ecosystem do we want to become part of?

"Fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but she still leaves the other half, or almost the other half, to be controlled by us."

Machiavelli (Discourses on Livy, 1531)